Thursday, June 8, 2017

Sodium households acquire in packaged food, beverages decreased

Excessive dietary sodium is a modifiable risk factor for
hypertension and cardiovascular disease, and the Institute of Medicine
has said it is essential to reduce sodium in packaged foods. Yet, not
much is known about whether sodium in packaged foods has changed over
the past 15 years. A new article published by JAMA Internal Medicine tries to answer that question.

Jennifer M. Poti, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, and coauthors used data obtained from The Nielsen Company
from the 2000 to 2014 Nielsen Homescan Consumer Panel on packaged food
and beverage purchases by U.S. households. Household members used a
barcode scanner to record their purchases.

Among a sample of 172,042 U.S. households:

The amount of sodium households acquired from packaged
food and beverage purchases decreased between 2000 and 2014 by 396
mg/day per capita (the amount of sodium in milligrams purchased daily
per person) from 2,363 mg/day to 1,967 mg/day.

The sodium content of households' packaged food purchases also
decreased by 49 mg/100 g (the amount of sodium relative to the amount
of food), a 12 percent decline.

The average sodium content of households' purchases decreased
for all top food sources of sodium between 2000 and 2014, including
declines of more than 100 mg/100 g for condiments, sauces and dips and
salty snacks.

Still, less than 2 percent of U.S. households had total
packaged food and beverage purchases with optimal sodium density of 1.1
mg/kcal or less.

Limitations of the study include that households do not report
whether all foods purchased were consumed, so the data do not reflect
sodium intake.

"The slow rate of decline in sodium from store-bought foods suggests
that more concerted sodium reduction efforts are necessary in the
United States. Future studies are needed to examine sodium trends by
race/ethnicity and income to identify vulnerable subpopulations that
further interventions should target," the article concludes.